UEFA Ultimate Team Journal

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Day One: Our team sucks. Inside EA's quirky new career mode in Champions League.

By Jonathan Miller

It was a long day for Team Milla on this, the first day in EA's new Ultimate Team mode. Not only did Team Milla finish with two losses and a measly tie against some of the crummiest teams included in the upcoming UEFA Champions League 2006-2007, but the team failed to score a single goal.

Ouch.

It's not all about winning early on in Ultimate Team, however. It's about accumulating a decent base of players and coaches, not unlike the early matches in Master League mode in Konami's Winning Eleven franchise. Where Ultimate Team swerves from traditional manager modes is in the method you accumulate these players and coaches: playing cards.

After a few awkward rounds of buying cards and trying to figure out what the hell to do with them, the mode actually becomes quite addicting as you continually improve your game and by packs. Here's how it breaks down.

I have a bunch of players and they are all bad. I haven't heard of a single one (which isn't saying much for the average American soccer fan). I also have some gameplay cards that give in-game boosts like fitness and shooting ability, as well as coach cards, contract cards and training cards. That's right. You actually extend the contracts on your Ultimate Team by utilizing contract cards for, say, five matches. Not two years for two million. Contracts operate by a number of matches. If you don't use a new contract card on a player and his time is up, he's off the team.

Sounds crazy, right? Well, it is if you're like me and enjoy a traditional manager mode. But that doesn't mean the quirky new mode isn't fun. First, I play a match. If I win, I get three points; one for a tie; zilch for a loss. After I reach nine points, my team will advance to the next division. The better the division, the better the cards. Of course, my team blows so I can only buy bronze-level cards.

While playing the game, I try to use my four gameplay cards to get bonuses for my team or to hurt the other team. It's fun to decrease the opponents' dribbling skills and watch them start turning the ball over. No, this isn't realistic, but it's fun. After the game, I go into manager mode.

Between games, I use cards for player contracts, staff contracts, team talks (motivational speeches that boost morale), training (cards that boost individual players' abilities), keeper training, fitness, and injuries. You use cards in your collection to manage all the aspects of your team. After you use ever card in the deck, you discard the leftovers and buy new ones.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Although my team still blows, I've managed to replace most of my scrubs (rated about 65 overall) with decent players rated around 75. As you can imagine, this little routine becomes quite addicting, similar to leveling up in an RPG title. I can't wait to see the card exchange marketplace online, where you use experience to buy unwanted doubles from other gamers around the planet. There are some elusive players out there like Henry, and buying them online may be the only way you're likely to stumble across the cards.

That was day one of Team Milla, and it wasn't pretty. We'll keep you posted in the coming weeks to see as Team Milla quietly becomes the Ultimate Team.